Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/231

 the bewildered Turner could fully come to his senses.

"They're there all right," Hardy announced, with a look of relief. "I peeped over the transom, and saw 'em dead—asleep."

"How did Legs get in there if you didn't know it?" persisted Turner.

Hardy immediately started his story and, while Turner listened with tense interest, brought it down to the point where he sent the lads away from the scene of the collision.

"After we got rid of the boys," he proceeded, "King and I squatted down on the side of the road with our fingers on the triggers of our automatics to fix our unknown friend in case he tried to make off in our machine. His was out of commission good and proper. We listened and listened, but not a suspicious sound did we hear. As soon as day broke and we could see objects with some clearness, we began to peer around cautiously. Nothing suspicious was to be seen in the immediate neighborhood of the machine, but just beyond, were tracks. Now about fifty feet from the road, there is a slope of some fifteen-foot fall. We crawled up to this